


Part of me won't go away

by Tirxmishu



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/F, but...one day, one day i will learn how to write them, or atleast an attempt was made at angst, today is not that day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-23 08:13:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23008426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tirxmishu/pseuds/Tirxmishu
Relationships: Jester Lavorre & Beauregard Lionett, Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 3
Kudos: 72





	Part of me won't go away

Beauregard looks intense. More so than usual. Her anger bleeds into the way she clenches her jaw sharply as she chews, in the way she clanks her utensils against the plates with more force than necessary. It seems that at the slightest ill-timed foreign aggression, she’ll swing and murder the poor soul nearest to her.

Which is why Fjord is sitting at the far side of the table and not next to this broody ticking time bomb. He eats slowly, watches her every move and doesn’t even notice Nott as she climbs up to the space next to him.

“What’s up with her?”

He shrugs and then swallows, “D’know. She’s been like that since morning.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? What happened?”

He pushes the plate away and then grabs Nott’s hood, cleaning his hands with it, “Yeah, nothing weird happened. We just worked out like always and then came back here for breakfast.”

Nott hisses as she jumps away, swatting his hands, “Gross! You’re disgusting! Why is she like this then?”

“Like I said, I don’t know. It’s best if we just let her cool off.”

They turn their heads when they hear a loud thud.

“I can hear you, you know?” the monk tightens her grip on her tankard of water, “You’re talking about me and I’m right here. Mind your own fuckin’ business or at least have the decency to whisper.”

She gets up and walks away, bumping into Caduceus. They just stare at her back until she disappears from their line of sight.

“Is everything okay?” Caduceus sits gently and pours tea in his small cup.

Fjord shrugs, “Beau’s pissed and we don’t know what for.”

“Oh?” Caduceus brings the teacup to his mouth and sips cautiously. He nods, satisfied at the bitter flavor. “It finally happened, then.”

Nott’s ears perk up and she jerks forward to the edge of her seat, “What finally happened?”

The firbolgs eyebrows rise slightly as if he’s surprised at Nott’s cluelessness. He sets his teacup down on the table and contemplates what to say for a moment. “Fjord?”

“Yes, Caduceus?”

“Do you know what happens to plants if you neglect them too much?”

Fjord tilts his head backward and narrows his eyes. “They wilt.”

“Yes. Some do. Some plants wilt. However, not every plant turns into compost for the other. Some plants, well, they keep on growing until they cannot be contained and then they have to be rooted so that you can preserve the other plants around it. They even get wilder and grow thorns and then bramble-,”

Nott doesn’t seem to follow the conversation and interrupts Caduceus’s ramble, “Yes, yes but what does this have anything to do with Beau?”

Caduceus doesn’t respond. Instead, he looks over to Fjord, hoping he would follow-up on Nott’s question.

“Beau’s…” he begins slowly, trying to piece together what Caduceus was trying to imply, “She’s feeling neglected?” At the subtle smile, he receives from the firbolg he continues, turning to Nott, “She’s upset about something she’s kept unchecked and now she’s unable to contain it.”

“Exactly. Now, all that pent up energy is going to manifest in terrible ways. It’s extremely unhealthy but it’s how Beau deals.”

Except, that isn’t the way Beauregard tries to make peace with her inner turmoil. She tries, of course, to handle her emotions but at the very cusp of diving into them, the fear of not coming out of darker waters halts the process. There is just no grace in her method.

Even now, there is nothing healthy about the way she runs till her lungs threaten to burn to cinders. There is nothing gentle with the way she grits her teeth and shakes in fury, growling like a beast. There is nothing even remotely constructive with how, at that slight moment of clarity, she takes a few steps forward and channels all the strength in her arm to lash out at the tree in front of her.

Right now, there is only fear and anger and shame.

All that power and energy immediately fades afterward. In its wake, she grows tired. Her bones feel like lead and her fists loosen, she turns and falls backwards against the very tree she attacked, slumping downwards in defeat.

The young monk didn’t know what to do. Should she cry? No, she found breathing too hard right now and if she cried she fears she will suffocate. So she just sits there, feeling tired and heavy and older than she is. Defeat settles deep in her bones and she revels in the familiar ache.

Sitting alone in the middle of the woods was probably not the smartest idea, but she was deeply numb to notice how vulnerable she was. Hell, even the pain from the slow forming bleed on her knuckles is barely registering, warm droplets of blood-forming little islands on tender cuts.

Her body is not her own. It feels surreal to be separated from herself.

It isn’t until gentle fingers curl around her own, thin red rivulets now browned and crusted, that she blinks. She blinks the first time and takes a huge breath, feeling cold lips press against her knuckles. The second time she blinks, the sting of healing flesh brings her back into her head and she winces.

“Jester?”

Tiny neon flecks of bright blue healing magic dust themselves off of Beau’s hand as she takes the girl in front of her in. She looks across the freckles spread on clear blue skin and into violet eyes. I adore you, she thinks. Those eyes full of mischief and dark blue brows turned upwards in concern. So much.

Jester grins, lips still reverently pressed against the monks now healed knuckles. Soon after, she pulls away and sits back on her heels, not letting go of Beauregard’s hand. Instead, she cups it between her own, “I figured you’d run away at least three towns over by now, Beau.”

The human raises a brow and smiles lazily, still too tired, “I bet I could run five over.”

“I don’t doubt it for a moment, in fact,” Jester leans forward, whispering conspiratorially, “I kinda just made a bet with Fjord that you’re in Zadash so maybe like when we get to him you can say that I found you at Pumat Sol’s.”

“Huh, it would take me four days to run there, if I do.”

“An hour. It would take you an hour, I believe in you.”

“Totally,” Beauregard smiles at the sincerity. Jester really thought she could do anything…Maybe her admiration wasn’t one-sided?

“Anyways,” Jester reaches into her bag and brings out a doughnut, splitting it in two and sharing the smaller half with Beau, “What’re you doing out here? The others say you kinda snapped.”

Beau grabs the other half and shakes her head fondly when she notices it’s smaller. She takes a bite, “Did the others send you?”

“No, I saw you leave all grumpy,” Jester pauses, thinking it over, “Well, actually, Nott did mention to check on you since you yelled at her and Fjord. I came here on my own, though. I promise!”

“I did not yell. They were being dicks,” she stuffs the rest of the doughnut in her mouth, “And I believe you.”

Jester nodded and pointed to her doughnuts. She ate in silence, got crumbs all around her mouth and then waited for a moment afterward before speaking. “What happened, Beau?”

Beau grunted, “Nothing. Just lost my cool there for a sec.”

“It isn’t nothing,” she crosses her arms, “You’re angry. Why?”

Silence. Beauregard clenched her jaw, grinding her teeth and looking away at her side. She felt her anger start to bubble right back up, “It’s nothing. I got it, don’t worry.”

Jester frowned, “Beau, I had to burn two spells to find you and when I did there’s blood all over your hand. There’s something wrong and you can talk to me about it.” When she saw the monk bristle a little, she sighed, “Or not. It’s your choice.”

Seeing the tieflings dejection, the subtle disappointment in her tone, Beau hesitated. She stops breathing, closes her eyes and then exhales loudly. “No, it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it with you, it’s just,” she looked slowly over at her, “I guess it’s just stupid and you’re right. I am mad. At something. It’s just so stupid and that makes me even angrier.”

Jester just nods before adjusting herself to sit cross-legged in front of Beau, putting her elbows on her knees and resting her head on her hands. Beau relaxes further and is encouraged to speak by the silence, “It’s about Kamordah. Or, I guess what happened there.”

“We stayed there for an hour, though. Did something bad happen, Beau?”

The monk sighed again, shrugging. Jester smiled coyly, bopping her eyebrows up and down in a suggestive manner, “Did you do something illegal?”

“What?” She was taken aback for a moment. A small chuckle escaped her and she played along, “Hmm…I don’t know. Maybe?”

“Lies, you wouldn’t do anything without me. What about…that moment when you spaced out a little after we left the tavern? Something must have happened there, huh?”

Beau went quiet. On one hand, she was pleased with noting how Jester noticed but on the other, she was confused at how to explain what made her feel so out-of-tune with herself. She decided to just blurt it out.

“The barkeep said I was ‘so much like my dad’ and that,” she lowered her finger quotations, “that I reminded them of him.”

“Oh,” Jester raises her eyebrows, “Oh. Oh shit”

“Yeah.”

Her heart hurt at seeing Beau look so torn up about it. “Well fuck them. They’re wrong, you’re nothing like Thoreau.”

When Jester said his name, something in Beauregard snapped. It was like someone tossed a fireball at explosive powder. All that corrupt emotional residue baked by her own repression began to come out in waves.

“Aren’t I, though?” Beauregard sat straighter, her eyes stressing around the corners, “Aren’t I just like him? Gods, Jes, I even look like him. Every time I look at myself I see his eyes staring right back at me. I see him and I don’t see anything else!”

“Beau-,”

The monk raises her hands, her voice cracking up from her rising emotions, “There’s no point in even trying to convince me that I’m not that fucking douchebag. Hell! What’s fucking worse is that I can’t even escape his shadow! Even my name- Even-,” there is a slight glisten to her eyes, a redness forming around her nose which is curled up in a snarl, “Even when I hate him I still want to make him proud.”

Beau is not crying, she’s not sobbing. It’s worse. She’s like a dragon sputtering fumes, gurgling out hot magma of rage stuck in her throat, desperate to find a way to breathe around it. Jester scrambles forward, her hands reaching desperately to ground her. Her heart constricts at seeing her look so unhinged. The human, however, motions at her to not come near her.

“I’m so tired of trying to break free from this…this...thing he has over me.”

Jester persists, grabbing shaking hands between her own, “No, Beau, stop, listen to me that’s not-,”

“Please, Jester. Don’t say I’m not. Don’t say I’m not like him because I am!” She lets out an incredulous laugh, half sneering, “Maybe that’s why I fucking hate myself, y’know? Because I’m like him and I despise him.”

Before Beauregard even has a chance to breakdown, Jester lunges forward, grabbing the back of her head and bringing it close to her chest. She wraps her arms around Beauregard, wishing more than ever to trade anything, no matter what, to make her feel better.

She lets the monk tremble, let’s the pain flow and pour out in waves away from her. Jester holds Beau through it all, tightening her grip even more when the human grabs the back of her clothes fiercely as if holding a lifeline. It’s only after they grow quiet, when everything stills and Beau whimpers out the last string of her frustration that Jester notices tears on her own cheeks.

Her hand gently scratches the fuzzy undercut on the side of Beau’s head and she waits for Beau to move first. When the monk let’s go of her deathly tight grip on her dress and sheepishly sits back, rubbing the backs of her knuckles against her sore eyes, Jester moves closer to her.

“I don’t get like this. I’ve never gotten like this.”

“Beau?”

The monk stops and looks at Jester, “Hmm?”

“I want you to listen to me, okay?” She comes closer and puts her hands on each side of her face, effectively cupping her head, “I want you to listen because I know you don’t get like this. Which is why it’s so important for you to talk about it.”

“It won’t help-,” when the tiefling glares at her with an unprecedented amount of fury, Beau shuts up.

“Talking won’t help fix things but it makes you feel like you’re not alone. It makes you feel like you’re understood,” Jester hesitates a bit, “I…know how lonely and scary that feels, yeah? To not feel,” she looks deep into Beau’s eyes, failing to hide gratitude and love, “known.”

She clears her throat and looks at the scar across her brow, “You are not your dad,” when she feels Beau inhale largely, partly to protest, her tone gets more insistent, “You are not him. You have a choice here, Beau.”

When she sees the confusion in the monk’s eyes, she clarifies, “You can choose to be better than him. You can choose to accept him as a part of yourself. Or you can choose to not do anything with him at all. Fuck him.”

“But-,”

“Fuck. Him,” Jester stops her, “If you want, he can have nothing to do with you ever. But here’s the truth,” she gently traces her finger over the scar, “to people that see you both, you look alike. I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass and tell you that you don’t look like his daughter. But to people that know you? You two are nothing like each other.”

Beauregard’s eyes soften, taking in every word that Jester says like gospel. She flutters her eyes shut when she feels the slow glide of the pad of the other girl’s finger over her scar, bottom lip quivering minutely at the affection.

“You’re going to hear that sometimes. But you have to choose, Beau. You are not your parents, you are not what other people say you are,” Jester scrunches her eyes for a bit, “Actually, sometimes people can be right too.”

The monk laughs breathily, “So I might be what people think I am?”

“It’s complicated.”

“And you?”

“Hmm? What about me?”

Beauregard opens her eyes and stares into vibrant violet, “You’re my favorite person. What do you think of me?”

Jester smiles, biting her bottom lip with her fang, “Well, obviously I think you’re very hot. Like, super-hot,” Beau smirks, puffing up, despite looking like she hasn’t slept in ages, and Gods does Jester find that look attractive, “I also think you’re really smart and amazing and you can do anything. You’re also really beautiful and you care a bunch-,” the human cups her hand over Jester’s mouth, stopping her excited ramble.

“Okay, okay, I get it. You’re in love with me.”

The tiefling smirks, eyes alight with mirth, “Well, In a way…”

Shaking her head at the callback, Beauregard pulls back a little.

“I get what you mean. Trust me, I really do but,” she sighs, “like I told you, I still can’t help feeling like this. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not!”

Her lips press together in a thin line.

“It’s not stupid. Okay,” Jester raises her hand and points one finger up, “Did you think it was stupid when Fjord chiseled his tusks down?” At the shake of Beau’s head, Jester continues, lifting a second finger, “Did you think it was stupid when Yasha couldn’t sit with us for weeks after what Obann made her do?” Another negative, “So what you’re feeling isn’t stupid.”

Beau makes a sound akin to a whine, eyes downcast and Jester understands. She understands that you can’t just heal something in a day. When the monk speaks, it’s soft and determined, “Okay. I don’t…I can’t un-see his nature in me. But…I trust you. If you say that I’m not like him, then,” She takes Jester’s hand and brings it to her lips, kissing the back of it gently, “I guess I’ll have to try to make that true. I’ll try to see what you see. For you. And me.”

Jester smiles gently, “I’ll be right there to help you through it, Beau. You won’t get lost for long if you do. We-,” Jester pauses, a flash of resolve settles in every fiber of her being and she leans forward, hugging Beauregard tightly, “I believe in you.”

She was half expecting to feel shocked at the display of affection but she didn’t. It felt as stable and grounded and sure as their bond and it was over as quickly as it happened.

“Thank you, Jes.”

“It’s no problem, Beau.”

With one final smile, Beauregard nods, gets on her feet and tugs the tiefling up with her, “Neat. Now, we should start to move back it’s gonna get all dark.”

“Oh shit, you’re right. Dimension door?”

“Fuck yes, my feet are killing me.”

“You probably shouldn’t have run all this way then.”

“Shut up, I know,” She flops forward uselessly, “Carry me. Actually, you know what? Never mind. I can do this.”

“Don’t forget to fuck with Fjord and tell him you were at Pumat’s.”

Beau snickers as she follows Jester through the glowing green doorway in front of them.


End file.
